5 Streaming Shows That Aren't Worth Jack
Getting a show on television used to be prestigious. Now there are so many networks looking to throw TV spaghetti at the walls and see what sticks that a show called Memory Hole got made. Streaming networks seem especially eager to make terrible shows.
In fact, it's beginning to feel like some are doing it on purpose to rank in those sweet hate-watching views. Otherwise, I don't see how we get shows like ...
Firefly Lane - Like Parody Of A Lifetime Show, But Serious
Everything you need to know about Firefly Lane is that one of its two main characters is an aspiring journalist, and her name is Kate Malarkey. The show doesn't gloss over that either. This show says Malarkey more than an angry Joe Biden trying to use a new-fangled electric can opener.
Malarkey is best friends talk show host Katherine Heigl. The show is about their friendship, but it's told wildly out of order, with each episode taking place in the '70s, '80s, and early 2000s. They demark each decade with the classic de-aging tool of bad wigs. As we all know, in the past, everyone's hair was just slightly longer than it is now. Hello, LAPD bad wigs crime division; I have several reports to make.
Netflix
Aside from its hair crimes, the show also goes out of its way to be as basic and corny as possible. Real lines that came from someone's human mouth on this show in 2021 include: "Soup, huh? So you're one of those. A nurturer. You're sweet ... maybe too sweet for the news. You crossed the line, Tully. I don't know why I'm surprised. You don't even know where the damn line is!"
It's like a parody of a Lifetime show, but it's not a parody at all; it's deadly serious. When Malarkey's boss asks her to express her dog's anal glands, so she holds it over a toilet, and they play human shitting sounds, she's really selling her distress at this terrible situation. Honestly, Malarkey could win a Golden Globe for acting, and I'd be fine with it.
Emily In Paris - The Show Even The Crew Admit Doesn't Deserve Awards Nominations
Speaking of Golden Globes, Netflix's Emily In Paris ("pronounced with a French accent so 'Emily' and 'Paris' rhyme") was somehow nominated for one! The things people most frequently Google about Emily In Paris sound like questions you ask when reemerging from a coma to find a television show that makes you think you must have brain damage.
Let me help you out here, hon. Yes, Emily in Paris is, unfortunately, real. Everyone agrees the show is not good. One of the show's writers published a piece on The Guardian saying she can't believe it was nominated, and Michaela Coel's I May Destroy You was not. One of the lead actors said critics "were right about the show." (Critics did not like it.)
It was created by famous Sex And The City showrunner Darren Star, and it feels like it. The show is dated. From the outfits to its total misunderstanding of social media, I would be shocked to learn anyone on the writing staff was actually in their 20's -- if there were people in Emily's age group, no one was listening to them.
It was created by famous Sex And The City showrunner Darren Star, and it feels like it. The show is dated. From the outfits to its total misunderstanding of social media, I would be shocked to learn anyone on the writing staff was actually in their 20's and if there were people in Emily's age group, no one was listening to them.
It's also boring; no new territory is covered here. It's about a pretty girl in Paris. Is her name Audrey Hepburn? Then I don't care. You know who did care, though? French people, who were enraged at both the white-washed version of Paris shown and the weird, untrue French stereotypes.
Did you know that all French people have affairs? French offices don't open until 10 AM! And boy, do those Frenchies love their wine. It's like some Googled, "Paris, weird?" And then wrote a TV show.
Joshua Rivera from The Verge best described See by saying that, "You could just plainly state something that happens in an episode, and everyone would assume that you were making it up." Here let me try it. There's an evil queen who prays by masturbating. What do you mean I can stop right there?
See is an Apple TV+ show about a post-apocalyptic society where the earth's population has been reduced to two million people by a virus. Almost everyone remaining is blind.
It's a big swing kind of show, which I respect, but when you take big swings, sometimes you get The Matrix, and sometimes you get that movie where Channing Tatum is a genetically engineered dog man.
If See didn't want to be Game Of Thrones so bad, it might be a better show, but it wants to be Game Of Thrones so, so bad. You've got your evil, bald queen who wears a crown even though no one but her knows that. You've got an incestuous relationship between an Aunt and her nephew, and they kiss like this ...
Apple Inc.
And you've got Jason Momoa doing big stabbies on everyone. Honestly, it's sad that this show is so bad because Jason Momoa and Alfre Woodard are doing their best with some very silly material, and any scene where Jason Momoa is fighting someone is great:
But the idea that he can fight so well when just walking through the woods is shown to be challenging for him is as ridiculous as every other thing in this show.
Haute Dog - These Poor Pups
Unlike Amazon's reality TV dog show The Pack, Haute Dog was not canceled due to allegations of causing its doggy contestants distress, but it should have been. Every dog being groomed on HBO Max's dog grooming competition clearly thinks it's being punished, and in a way, it most certainly is.
Haute Dog was filmed during the pandemic, which means someone risked their life so that a dog could look this tragic:
HBO
That is a "Salute To Our Troops" dog from the Superhero-themed episode. It is not the ugliest dog on the show, but I watched a man spray paint camo onto a dog, and I wasn't going to not mention that. I'm not sure what the most obnoxious grooming a dog got was; no, wait, I am. It was the Lana Del Rey-themed dog, complete with a puppy-sized flower crown.
I think Haute Dog suffers the most from being to LA of a show. A contestant brings in a magic crystal wand and waves it over her dogs, and everyone is way too chill about it. They're going for a kitschy aesthetic but overshooting it and hitting cloying.
Plus, the judging panel just doesn't mesh well, and you can tell that social distancing measures keep contestants and judges far apart most of the time. I have a feeling this show will be a one-season wonder that will feel haunting in a few years when COVID restrictions are lifted.
Hoops - Animated Eastbound And Down, But Bad
Of all the shows on this list, I wish I could remove this from my memory hole the most. Netflix has produced some of the greatest adult cartoons of the past decade. Big Mouth, BoJack Horseman, Tuca and Bertie, all great. Then in the cursed year of 2020, they released Hoops.
Not a great sign with the biggest laugh the series trailer can muster is a faint smirk.
If you want to watch Eastbound And Down, but with none of the charm or a single good joke, Hoops is the show for you. It stars Jake Johnson from New Girl as a terrible high school basketball coach, who in the first episode recruits the only tall kid in his school by offering him, "Pussy." It's impossible to discuss Hoops without being incredibly vulgar because being vulgar and gross is the entire show.
I would say it's like it's written by a 15-year-old boy, but American Vandal was designed to look like it was made by 15-year-old boys, and it was hilarious, so I won't insult 15-year-old boys that way. Jen Chaney from Vulture did the math, and there's an F-bomb every 11 seconds in the pilot's cold open. It's their one trick. The coach said a BAD WORD, you guys. This is A-plus comedy.
Netflix canceled Hoops just three and a half months after it aired. Usually, they drag out a cancelation, to give shows time to build an audience with good word of mouth. Yeah, they knew that wasn't going to happen here.
Lydia is a weekly columnist at Seanbaby and Brockway's 1-900-HOTDOG and is a known Twitter Gremlin.
Top image: HBO, Netflix
